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  • Josh Shapiro has a 16-point lead in the governor’s race — and most Pa. Democrats would support him for president

    Josh Shapiro has a 16-point lead in the governor’s race — and most Pa. Democrats would support him for president

    With a little more than two months until Election Day, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro has a double-digit lead over his Republican challenger, Stacy Garrity, among likely Pennsylvania voters in the race to lead the critical swing state — an election that could also serve as an audition for the 2028 presidential primary.

    Shapiro holds a 16-percentage-point lead over Garrity, the state treasurer, according to a new poll of 760 likely voters conducted from Aug. 17 through 21 by The Inquirer, the New York Times, and Siena University.

    The numbers could foreshadow another commanding victory for Shapiro, as he hopes his popularity trickles into other down-ballot races, including four congressional districts that national Democrats think they can flip. Shapiro is also trying to flip the state Senate for the first time in 30 years and deliver a Democratic trifecta in the statehouse.

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    A majority of Pennsylvania voters — 60% — have a favorable opinion of the governor, compared with Garrity, who is viewed favorably by just 37% in the state.

    Shapiro’s popularity also eclipses that of President Donald Trump, according to the poll. Sixty percent of likely Pennsylvania voters approve of the job Shapiro is doing as governor, while 39% approve of Trump, who won the state two years ago.

    Read the full Inquirer/NYT/Siena poll here.

    Lora Peluso, 63, a Democrat and retired catering director from Pittsburgh, said Shapiro has been a shield in Pennsylvania against some of Trump’s most harmful policies affecting low-income and older people.

    “I think [Shapiro] is trustworthy,” said Peluso, who participated in the poll. “His policies are things that actually benefit people, the average working person, seniors.”

    Garrity still unknown by some Republicans

    Pennsylvania Republicans this year had hoped to avoid another walloping by Shapiro, who has won three times statewide, with fears that a weak gubernatorial candidate could negatively affect the rest of the Republican ticket. So the state GOP took the unprecedented move of endorsing Garrity in September 2025 — approximately 14 months before the election — to try to raise her profile.

    Despite securing Trump’s endorsement, Garrity has struggled to raise money, attract support from national Republicans, or compete with Shapiro’s $13 million in ad buys so far this cycle. Her campaign has spent $679,000 on ad buys thus far, according to media-tracking firm AdImpact, as it seeks to introduce the candidate to voters.

    Now, with 70 days until the election, a quarter of likely Republican voters still did not know Garrity or know enough about her to form an opinion of her, according to the poll.

    Meanwhile, Shapiro maintains favorable opinions among 27% of Trump’s 2024 supporters, and 35% of registered Republicans approve of the job he is doing as governor, the poll found.

    Will Donald Trump and national Republicans help Stacy Garrity’s campaign from falling flat against Josh Shapiro?

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    Michael Patterson, a Republican from Trumbauersville, Bucks County, who supported Trump in 2024, said he plans to support Shapiro in November because he likes the job the governor is doing and because he does not know much about Garrity besides what he has seen on social media.

    “Honestly, I don’t know much about her,” Patterson, 60, said. “I guess I don’t see advertisements on the TV. Other than Facebook, I really don’t see her. The stuff I see on Facebook is just typical partisan stuff.”

    Shapiro, on the other hand, appears more moderate and independent from his party in Patterson’s eyes.

    “He’s kinda doing his own thing. I have a lot of respect for that. He’s not playing partisan games,” Patterson said, contrasting Shapiro with Democrats in California and New York.

    Michael Patterson, a Bucks County Republican voter pictured in his Trumbauersville home, plans to vote for Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro over Republican nominee Stacy Garrity. William Thomas Cain / For The Inquirer

    This attitude shows up among other Republicans, too, said Don Levy, the director of the Siena Research Institute.

    “Shapiro is seen as sufficiently middle of the road,” Levy said. “He’s got 35% of Republicans approving of the job that he’s doing as governor. That’s a really impressive number in today’s world.”

    Other Republicans like Steven Keenan, 70, of Ridley Township, are all in for Garrity, citing her military experience and support for Trump.

    “[Shapiro’s] a big phony. He’s a politician,” Keenan said. “She is, too, but she’s been through the wars. I think she’s earned her place. I think we should give a woman a chance.”

    A majority of Pennsylvania voters trust Shapiro over Garrity to handle top issues facing the state, including the economy, cost-of-living increases, the Trump administration, immigration, and doing what is best for ordinary Pennsylvanians.

    Tina Hoffert, 68, of Lenhartsville, Berks County, said she has not heard much about Garrity, but plans to vote for her in November because she is unsatisfied with Shapiro’s leadership.

    “He’s forever bashing Trump,” Hoffert, a Republican, said. “I’m sorry, I don’t care whether you like him or not, he’s our president. You work with him. You don’t fight him. And if there’s things you don’t like that he’s doing, then you go in there and you have discussions.”

    Shapiro’s presidential prospects

    If Shapiro is reelected in a landslide victory this November, it becomes even more likely that he jumps into the 2028 presidential race as the governor of a key swing state with 19 electoral votes.

    Among those surveyed who said they plan to vote in the Democratic primary in two years, 86% said they would be likely to support him — though the poll did not compare him with other potential primary candidates.

    Other prospective candidates include former Vice President Kamala Harris, Govs. Gavin Newsom of California and JB Pritzker of Illinois, U.S. Sens. Mark Kelly of Arizona and Jon Ossoff of Georgia, and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

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    Shapiro has brushed off questions about his ambitions and told a reporter Saturday, in response to whether he would commit to serving a four-year term in office, that “the only thing that I’m focused on — and the only thing anybody should be focused on — is winning in November and being a check on this president’s chaos, cruelty, and corruption.”

    Most voters in the poll — 58% — said that if Shapiro decides to run for president, doing so either would not distract from his role as governor or would not keep him from being effective at governing.

    “I mean, it would be a distraction, of course, but I think he’s a professional and a hard worker, and he would figure it out. It seems like he hires good people, too,” said Peter Hewitt, 62, of Devon, a Democrat who supports Shapiro’s reelection bid.

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    Shapiro’s potential candidacy has largely centered on his electability, especially his ability to win the top office in the nation’s premier swing state. He has pitched himself as a Democratic governor more interested in working with Republicans to make meaningful improvements to the state than in picking partisan fights, and voters agree: 58% of respondents said he is neither too far to the left nor to the right.

    “He’s done a good job of just being more of a moderate, middle-of-the-road Democrat,” said Andrew Perez, a 58-year-old self-described independent voter in Pittsburgh. He said he appreciated Shapiro’s focus on improving roads and highways and not “just blindly disagreeing” with Trump.

    “I think we need a strong presidential candidate who will try to unite the country instead of just keeping it being divisive, so I think that I’d be pretty likely to vote for him [for president],” said Perez, a physician.

    Montiese McKenzie, 46, of West Philadelphia, said she is supporting Shapiro for a second term, but is not quite yet sold on a presidential run. She said she has not seen him rise to the level of “fighter” she thinks the Democratic Party needs, and believes as of now, she would be more likely to support someone else in the Democratic primary.

    “You see people like Jon Ossoff and JB Pritzker, and they’re not putting up with it. They don’t make it pretty anymore,” McKenzie said. “If I saw some of that in Shapiro, I might be more likely to support him as a presidential candidate. Until then, I’m not sure he has the gumption.”

    Shapiro has signed on to dozens of lawsuits against Trump’s administration on a host of issues, from tariffs to gender-affirming care.

    But to win the party’s nomination, Shapiro would have to defeat more progressive candidates and make the case for his more centrist approach.

    Montiese McKenzie, 48, poses for a portrait near her home in West Philadelphia on Monday, Aug. 24, 2026. McKenzie is a supporter of Gov. Josh Shapiro’s reelection, but is hesitant to back his potential presidential run in 2028.Allie Ippolito / For The Inquirer

    He has already faced criticism from some progressive voters over his previous support for school vouchers, and his early embrace of data centers, which he reversed last week by implementing what he called some of the nation’s “strictest guardrails.” Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s third Jewish governor, has also faced a perception from some progressives that he has been too supportive of Israel during its war with Hamas, despite his vocal opposition to the country’s leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

    Nearly half, 47%, of respondents said he has been just “about right on support of Israel,” with 14% saying he has been too supportive and 19% saying he has been not supportive enough.

    Should Shapiro launch a presidential campaign, Hewitt wants to see him “come out on the right side.”

    Hewitt, who emphasized his support for Jewish people in his community, said he considers the Israeli government’s actions toward Palestinian people in Gaza to be genocidal. More than 73,000 Palestinian people have been killed in Gaza since the war began nearly three years ago, and multiple international institutions have said Israel’s actions violate human rights.

    “I don’t think it’s really that big of a deal for governors per se. He’s not going to vote on national policy as the governor of Pennsylvania,” Hewitt said. But he added: “He does have a voice, and if he’s thinking about a next step beyond Pennsylvania, then he will have to come out in regard to that issue.”

  • After six years of chaos in Philly Sheriff’s Office, Rochelle Bilal must answer to judges

    After six years of chaos in Philly Sheriff’s Office, Rochelle Bilal must answer to judges

    Since being sworn-in as Philadelphia’s sheriff in January 2020, Rochelle Bilal has brought new levels of dysfunction to an office with a history of corruption and scandal going back to the mid-19th century.

    Tax revenue plummeted, court security incidents soared, and millions of dollars in public money have been diverted into an office slush fund.

    City Hall has ignored the mounting problems for the last six years. But this week Bilal must face a judge who could limit her ability to auction off foreclosed properties — arguably the office’s most important function.

    Bilal, a former police officer and self-described reformer, is due to appear Wednesday before Common Pleas Court Judge Paula Patrick to explain why the judge should not appoint a “special master” or some other expert to fix major delays in processing deeds after sheriff sales.

    Buyers have been waiting a year or longer after auction to receive their deeds, leaving the properties in a state of limbo that can invite squatters and contribute to blight. Without a deed, the foreclosed homes cannot be renovated, rented, or resold.

    The Inquirer first reported on that problem in July 2024. An analysis of more recent financial records shows that the office has also earned millions of dollars in interest from property auctions. That is because the proceeds of the sales are sitting for long periods in TD Bank accounts the Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office controls, rather than being used to quickly settle old tax and utility liens.

    Bilal’s office initially claimed the deed process was working as intended, saying through a spokesperson in 2024 that there was no “widespread delay” in recording deeds. With complaints continuing, she told City Council at an April budget hearing that it was the buyers who were responsible for the delays.

    Neither statement was true.

    In May, with buyers still petitioning the courts for their deeds, Judge Patrick, who is supervisor of the court’s commerce division, filed an order demanding that Bilal address the “ongoing harm” caused by the chronic backlog and submit extensive documentation pertaining to the handling of sheriff sales and related funds since she took office.

    The court order said Bilal’s office appears not to be “timely performing its essential, nondiscretionary, ministerial duties, which are mandated by law.”

    The sheriff snapped into action.

    Within 48 hours of Patrick’s court order, Bilal’s office processed 277 deeds — filing more paperwork in two days than it had in the prior three months.

    Sheriff Rochelle Bilal (right) is applauded as she testifies in City Council during a budget hearing in April. She claimed the deed-delay problem had been resolved.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer

    Last month, the office filed a response to the court order providing a new explanation for the delays: Bilal didn’t know about them.

    Steven Wakefield, a newly hired attorney who serves as Bilal’s deputy undersheriff, blamed the problem on a former director of deeds who was “doing the work of multiple people” after the office switched software vendors in 2023, requiring some functions to be performed manually.

    “The former director did not inform the sheriff of the backlog,” Wakefield wrote in a certification filed with the court on July 13.

    The certification does not say when Bilal first became aware of the delays or why she remained in the dark while her then-undersheriff, Tariq El-Shabazz, was signing the deeds.

    In a recent op-ed in City & State Pennsylvania, Bilal wrote that she was making “practical, measurable improvements designed to increase transparency, accountability and customer service.”

    “I have never shied away from constructive scrutiny from the media, watchdog organizations and the public,” she wrote.

    She declined to answer questions for this article.

    An expensive problem

    Cleaning up the deed mess has not been cheap.

    Among thousand of pages of records Bilal’s staff submitted to the court last month is a check log showing that the office, beginning in March, paid more than $4.5 million from the proceeds of mortgage foreclosure sales to the Corporation Service Co., or CSC, a Utah-based financial services corporation.

    Check memos describe the payments, equivalent to more than 10% of the office’s annual budget, as “deed processing fees.”

    Wakefield’s certification to the court claimed that all deeds have been issued through June. He attributed the turnaround partially to new hires and the integration of the office’s Tyler Technologies software — a system that went live two years ago — but made no mention of the money paid to CSC.

    “There is no further backlog of deeds to be issued,” he wrote.

    Real estate agents, investors, and attorneys interviewed by The Inquirer in recent weeks said deeds are, in fact, being processed more quickly after the court order.

    But the backlog has not been fully cleared.

    “That is 100% incorrect,” Edward Levin, a real estate agent, said of Wakefield’s statement to the court.

    Levin, whose firm resells homes following mortgage foreclosures, is still waiting on a handful of deeds from sheriff sales that took place in late 2024 and early 2025. They are supposed to be transferred within 40 days of settlement under state law.

    Homes have fallen into disrepair in recent years because Bilal’s staff has taken so long to transfer the deeds. Levin does not know what to tell new buyers who are under contract to purchase the properties.

    “I go to the properties once a week and I have to hear complaints from neighbors,” said Levin, who has dealt with squatters, overgrown lawns, and broken windows. “The people living next door to these properties get screwed the most.”

    An unfinished construction site along 900 block of Emily Street in September 2024 shows what can happen when foreclosed properties remain between owners for long periods. New owners can’t take possession of properties after auction until the sheriff’s office processes the deeds.Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer

    Mary Jo Potts, a foreclosure specialist at Elfant Wissahickon Realtors who resells those properties, said last week that she has seen a recent influx of deeds from the sheriff’s office.

    But Potts and other real estate agents are still dealing with another problem: The sheriff’s office is taking even longer to distribute the proceeds from auctions to settle tax and utility liens on the properties.

    Even with a deed in hand, the homes still cannot be resold without a clear title.

    “To me, that’s not getting any better,” Potts said.

    Financial records obtained by The Inquirer through a Right-to-Know request show that tens of millions of dollars began flowing into the sheriff’s coffers after auctions resumed for tax-delinquent properties in July 2024.

    But the money trickled out much more slowly.

    Twenty-two TD Bank checking accounts managed by the sheriff’s office contained a combined $39 million at the end of May 2024. By last August, that sum had swollen to $130 million.

    The majority flowed into a business account earmarked for money from mortgage foreclosure sales. The combined sums are so large, statements show the office generated more than $3 million in interest between 2024 and 2025.

    After all liens have been settled, any excess funds are owed to the former homeowner.

    David Denenberg, an attorney who seeks to collect those funds, said Bilal’s system for distributing the proceeds of sales is worse than ever. He questioned the propriety of the office generating millions of dollars in interest by holding onto the funds.

    “They’re making money on other people’s money,” Denenberg said. “They should be helping you, if you’re the purchaser or the one who lost their home. You shouldn’t have to flood the courts with this litigation.”

    David Bogdan, a probate attorney in Delaware County, said he spent nearly two years trying to obtain about $26,000 in excess funds from a 2022 mortgage-foreclosure sale. The money was owed to the estate of the former homeowner, who had died.

    “They just refused to pay,” Bogdan said. “There is no defense whatsoever. You have to return that money. It’s not yours.”

    Bogdan, who filed his claim in July 2024, said he contacted the office at least a half dozen times over more than a year, getting either no response or new excuses for the delay. He ended up having to hire a second attorney, Denenberg, to take the sheriff’s office to court.

    “They’re failing to do their basic duties,” said Bogdan, who in May finally received the funds owed to his clients. “It’s just torture dealing with them.”

    Among the other records Bilal submitted to the court in July is a list of about 16,000 unique properties that had been ordered to sheriff sale since Bilal took office, worth a combined $1.2 billion, based on city tax assessments.

    Only about 6,500 of those properties were ever successfully sold, according to the records, and many were repeatedly held back from the auction block, sometimes due to repayment or court orders, and sometimes for more opaque reasons.

    While the new filings shed some light on the scale of the sheriff’s real estate operations, they do not appear to be the full disclosure requested by the court, which included “a detailed accounting of all sales proceeds received and disbursed” by the sheriff from 2020 to now.

    None of the submitted records list any money distributed for sales later than 2023, and the sheets include numerous payments or credits that are missing dates or descriptions.

    Daniel Bernheim, the lawyer for a property group whose March lawsuit triggered the court order, said he has been unable to follow the money based on the records the office has provided so far.

    “It shouldn’t be like Where’s Waldo? It should be set forward clearly,” said Bernheim, who is also a township commissioner in Lower Merion. “I don’t know how you could function internally in the sheriff’s office if that information is not readily available.”

    Lauren Cristella, president and CEO of the good-government group Committee of 70, said the court should require new oversight.

    “The court should appoint a special master who will not just execute deeds but also process lien and utility payments so Philadelphians get what they’re owed without having to sue for it,” Cristella said.

    Bilal named ‘Hometown Hero’

    Both the Committee of 70 and the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority, Philadelphia’s fiscal watchdog, have called for the sheriff’s office to be abolished.

    In addition to the operational issues, Bilal has been mired in one mini-scandal after another since she took office: the cover-up of an inspector’s “stolen” city-leased vehicle; a bungled arrest of a suspect that led to a fatal accident; fake AI-generated headlines touting her performance; a top aide violating city ethics rules; an employee in the office who shot himself in the leg before a budget hearing.

    But despite that — and years of complaints from the public — both City Council and the mayor’s office have offered nearly universal praise for Bilal.

    “Give our sheriff a huge round of applause,” Mayor Cherelle L. Parker said during her first budget address in March 2024, as Bilal’s botched sheriff-sale contract with an online auction firm was costing the city and the school district an estimated $35 million in uncollected tax revenue.

    “I just want to thank you for your hard work and your dedication and working in partnership with members of Council and the city of Philadelphia,” Council President Kenyatta Johnson told Bilal at a budget hearing for her office the following month.

    By then, Bilal had been diverting millions of dollars in service-fee revenue — public money Philly’s Home Rule Charter says should be remitted to the city’s general fund — into an internal office account that is used for “discretionary” purchases, including $40,000 in branded merchandise, a $9,000 office mascot, and a $6,600 party at Chickie’s and Pete’s.

    “The city of Philadelphia works because you all work,” Councilmember Cindy Bass told Bilal at a budget hearing this April. It was at that hearing that Bilal falsely told Council that the problems with deeds had been fixed.

    Last week, the Phillies ushered Bilal onto the field at Citizens Bank Park and honored her as a “Hometown Hero.” She swung an honorary bat.

  • Supreme Court clears the way for Trump mail voting order in advance of midterms

    Supreme Court clears the way for Trump mail voting order in advance of midterms

    WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for President Donald Trump to move ahead with his executive order restricting mail-in voting, though it remains unclear how much his administration can implement before the fast-approaching midterm elections.

    The decision appears to leave room for additional court challenges that could further slow Trump’s order. The U.S. Postal Service laid out how it would implement the order last week, but time is running short to impose major changes with some states beginning to send mail ballots to voters in just a few weeks.

    The Supreme Court’s three liberal-leaning justices dissented from the unsigned order.

    Mail balloting has long been a favorite target for Trump, who has claimed that it breeds fraud despite strong evidence to the contrary and his own use of the voting method.

    The case could be one of multiple voting-related challenges before the justices. The Justice Department had filed an emergency appeal asking the high court to allow work on implementing the changes before the midterms.

    Trump’s executive order, signed in March, calls on his administration to create lists of eligible voters and orders the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to people on those lists.

    Democratic officials in 23 states, including Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia sued to block the order. They argued that the Constitution gives states and Congress the power to run elections, and Trump’s changes could lead to chaos and partisan abuse.

    “The consequences of allowing such transformative changes to take effect so close to this fall’s elections would be extreme,” attorneys for the states wrote. Dozens of state and local election officials weighed in, asking the justices to leave the order frozen while election preparations are already underway.

    In response to today’s ruling, Pennsylvania Gov. Shapiro posted on X:

    “Not so fast. Today’s SCOTUS decision does NOT deal with the substance of Trump’s unconstitutional Executive Order and does not mean his illegal attempt to restrict mail-in voting will go forward. Donald Trump does not run elections here in Pennsylvania — or in any state. We’ll see the Trump Administration in court. In the meantime, I’ll keep defending Pennsylvanians’ right to free, fair, and secure elections.”

    A judge in Massachusetts had blocked the plan for the midterm elections in those states. An appeals court upheld her decision. She later granted a second order blocking it nationwide.

    The Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court on procedural grounds in late July, arguing that the states sued too soon. They also pointed to another ruling out of Washington, where a judge allowed Trump’s order to proceed. An appeals court backed that decision, while still leaving room for future court action if the changes are implemented.

    Federal attorneys argued that the Massachusetts order “blocks the government’s ability to finalize and implement the President’s proposed policies to promote election integrity for the upcoming federal elections in November.”

    A dozen Republican-leaning states supported the federal government in their own appeal before the high court, saying states would have input on the final voter lists.

    The Supreme Court has previously ruled against Trump-backed arguments on mail-in ballots, finding in June that states can count ballots that arrive after Election Day. That case was decided after full briefing and arguments, rather than on the court’s emergency docket.

    Trump has blamed mail voting — without credible evidence — for his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020. He has promoted the proposed changes in his executive order as safeguards to keep non-U. S. citizens from voting.

    He’s also repeatedly pressed for the passage of the legislation that requires proof of citizenship to vote. Noncitizen voting has been shown to be rare, and is a felony that can be punishable by deportation.

    Using mail ballots has become increasingly popular with voters of both parties, with about 30% of all ballots cast that way during the 2024 presidential election, according to federal data. The process also is secure. A 2025 Brookings Institution study found only about four cases of fraud out of every 10 million mail ballots cast.

  • Trump’s economic approach draws concern from some Republicans

    Trump’s economic approach draws concern from some Republicans

    President Donald Trump’s economic policies drew a fresh round of concern from some Republicans over the weekend who criticized his trade policies, as others in the party sidestepped questions about his broader approach amid a midterm election that has put consumer prices front and center.

    Rep. Ashley Hinson (R., Iowa), who is running in one of the most competitive Senate races, reiterated her opposition to Trump’s recent announcement that he would lower tariffs for up to 300,000 metric tons of imported ground beef over the next 90 days, which he claimed would push down costs.

    “We need to focus on affordability, but I think this isn’t the way to do that,” Hinson told Fox News in an interview broadcast on Sunday Morning Futures, arguing it would hurt domestic cattle ranchers. The import taxes, she said, are helping U.S. cattle ranchers restore the U.S. cattle supply, which remains at a 75-year low.

    On Saturday, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, considered one of the most vulnerable Republican incumbents, implored Trump to reverse course on Canadian import taxes and “reach a fair agreement” after trade talks between the United States and Canada collapsed.

    “If the Administration proceeds with these tariffs, they will increase costs for Maine families, as most businesses will have no choice but to pass on the tariffs to their customers through higher prices,” Collins wrote in a social media post, urging “both sides to return to the negotiating table.”

    Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican who is running for reelection, refused to grade Trump on the economy when asked about it on ABC News’ This Week on Friday. He said that “people are not talking to me about Trump” on the campaign trail.

    Pressed again, Abbott said, “We all need to have prices lowered,” adding that he thought Trump was “on a track to get us there.”

    The comments from candidates in key races reflected the distance some Republicans have tried to draw from Trump at a moment when polls show that voters have major concerns about the economy and the president’s stewardship of it, including cost increases driven by an unpopular war with Iran. The remarks also revealed some of the geographic sensitivities to the administration’s economic approach that could come into play in November in battleground states such as Iowa and Maine.

    The White House did not respond to a request for comment. Trump has defended his economic actions.

    But some Republicans are unnerved by recent developments.

    Hinson joined other Midwestern Republicans, including Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and both of Nebraska’s senators, who criticized Trump’s beef import tariff cuts. Sen. Tim Sheehy (R., Mont.) said he had “advised President Trump against this course of action for a year.”

    The breakdown of trade negotiations with Canada kicked the Trump administration’s 50% tariffs on a range of Canadian goods into gear and prompted Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada to promise “dollar for dollar” counter-tariffs on American imports.

    Former Vice President Mike Pence, who served in the first Trump administration before breaking with Trump, expressed concern about the trade standoff between the United States and Canada on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday.

    “The last thing we need right now, as our economy is getting back on its feet, is a trade war with Canada,” Pence, a critic of Trump’s tariffs, said, adding, “That’s how I would advise the president: Drive a hard bargain, but let’s pursue free trade with free nations, especially our partners to the north.”

    On Sunday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told Fox News Sunday that “Canada gets the benefit of trading with the U.S. way more than the U.S. gets the benefit of trading with Canada” and that it was “foolish” for Canada to think it could win a trade war with the United States.

    Carney said the United States had made unreasonable demands of his country in trade negotiations.

    John Barrasso (R., Wyo.), the Senate majority whip, who is not up for reelection this year, defended Trump’s handling of negotiations — but he also said that the United States needed to maintain its trade relationship with its northern neighbor.

    Canada would “be wise” to return to the bargaining table and move forward, he said on Sunday Morning Futures, “because we need to continue trade with Canada.”

    He added, “The president is very consistent: We’re going to make sure to protect our workers and bring jobs back to America.”

    Democrats have sharply criticized Trump on the economy. On Sunday, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D., Md.) said Trump had broken his campaign commitments to keep the United States out of foreign wars and to lower prices.

    “He’s done the opposite,” Van Hollen told NBC’s Meet the Press. He added, “Broken promises, betrayal.”

    The campaign of Troy Jackson, the Democrat challenging Collins in Maine, slammed Trump’s tariffs.

    The tariffs are “a tax on Maine families and small businesses,” Dan Gottlieb, a spokesperson for Jackson’s campaign, said.

    Sen. Tim Scott (R., S.C.), a staunch supporter of Trump, sought to redirect an interview when pressed on Trump’s tariffs. Asked on Meet the Press if he agreed with Collins’ comment that they would increase costs for families, Scott, who presides over the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, pivoted to arguing that Trump had inherited economic problems from his predecessor, President Joe Biden Jr.

    The interviewer, Kristen Welker, interjected to say that Trump had been in office “for two years.”

    Asked if Trump had broken his campaign promise to lower costs, Scott again dodged the question, saying the election would be about differences between Democrats and Republicans.

    “At the end of the day, the American people need to see the contrast,” Scott said. “And the good news is, they’re seeing the contrast.”

    This article originally appeared in the New York Times.

  • The midterms feel like 2006 all over again

    The midterms feel like 2006 all over again

    WASHINGTON — The war in the Middle East is increasingly unpopular. So is the president as his numbers dip perilously — a common development in the sixth year of a presidency. Congressional Republicans are embroiled in unsavory scandals. Americans are shelling out big bucks for gas while economic anxiety runs high.

    The grim backdrop for November’s midterm elections has created a steep challenge for Republicans and opportunities for Democrats that look much the same as those they encountered in 2006. Back then, congressional Republicans faced the voters at the midpoint of President George W. Bush’s second term, with the public roiled by the war in Iraq, high fuel prices and a series of ugly accusations against members of the GOP majority on Capitol Hill.

    “It is striking,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic minority leader and chief architect of his party’s Senate campaign strategy this year and two decades ago. “The analogy is amazing.”

    The parallels are not perfect, since politics and campaigns have both changed radically over 20 years. But the comparisons are instructive, as officials in both parties stare down the final months of an election that will determine who controls Congress for the remainder of President Donald Trump’s term.

    “This is 2006 2.0,” said Rahm Emanuel, who in 2006 was an ambitious Democratic House member from Illinois and Schumer’s counterpart across the Capitol as the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “The similarities are eerie.”

    Emanuel and Schumer both have good reason to look back fondly on 2006, when Democrats triumphed in a blue wave.

    Exceeding expectations that year, Democrats picked up six seats in the Senate, taking control of the chamber. In the House, where the Republican majority seemed to have exhausted itself after a dozen years, Democrats gained 31 seats and installed Nancy Pelosi, who is now retiring, as the first woman speaker. Bush, another victim of the six-year presidential itch, famously branded the outcome “a thumping.”

    This year, the Senate map is stacked against Democrats — they would need to win at least four Republican-held seats to take control, all but one of them in states that Trump won in 2024. And not all of the most competitive races have gone as party leaders had hoped. But Democrats have benefited from some political twists in places where they had not anticipated being competitive, such as in Texas, where Trump’s primary endorsement of the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, over Sen. John Cornyn, put that seat in play.

    The nonpartisan Cook Political Report on Thursday moved its ratings of the Texas and Iowa Senate races from leaning Republican to a toss up, underscoring the expanding battleground that Democrats would need in order to replicate 2006. Democrats say that they believe they are also increasingly competitive in other states carried by Trump two years ago, including Kansas.

    While clear similarities exist this year, significant differences are present as well — not the least of which is that Americans consume and process political content far differently than they did 20 years ago, with an emphasis on digital media rather than traditional television advertising.

    Other structural changes have taken place that could influence the results. The two parties this year engaged in a redistricting war that could help stem some of the House losses Republicans might have suffered in a midterm year that traditionally runs against those in power. Polarization runs deeper, making it harder to shake voters from their party identification. Trump’s hold on his base seems stronger than Bush’s was in 2006, though it is potentially weakening amid a backlash to the war with Iran.

    In the Senate and the House, the Democratic establishment did not get its preferred candidates through the primaries in some key races, including in Maine and Michigan. And the rise of far-left socialist candidates has Republicans seeing an opening to try to brand Democratic contenders across the country as part of a movement out of step with typical Americans.

    For those reasons and more, Republicans say the comparison between the two elections comes up short.

    “Democrats are running with a radically different party on a dramatically different map, and the fundamentals are stacked against them,” Mike Marinella, a spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said in a statement. “Republicans have stronger candidates, a historic fundraising advantage and a more favorable battlefield, while Democrats are letting socialists hijack must-win races from Michigan to Colorado, Arizona, California and Maine.”

    In 2006, the war with Iraq was the central issue in the campaign as Americans soured on Bush’s handling of the conflict, particularly after his main justification for the invasion — the claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction — turned out to be false. Trump’s conflict with Iran has not gone on nearly as long, nor has it produced the same level of casualties. But Bush had significantly more support at the start. Public opposition helped drive approval numbers for the two presidents below 40%, a dangerous midterm level, as both wars also drove up fuel costs.

    Then as now, Democrats tried to capitalize on kitchen-table economic concerns with the potential to drive voters. In 2006, it was Bush’s proposal to privatize Social Security, which never came to pass. Now, it is the Republican-written law slashing Medicaid and other safety net programs to pay for large tax cuts, as well as the GOP’s decision to allow healthcare subsidies to expire, sending premiums soaring.

    “We found an issue early,” Schumer said, recalling 2006. “Rahm and I did Social Security. Now we found the costs issue, particularly led by healthcare.”

    Another undercurrent of the 2006 campaign has an equivalent today: the image of disturbing Republican misconduct. Twenty years ago, Democrats campaigned against a “culture of corruption,” pointing to a series of financial and sex scandals that led to resignations and jail time for a series of senior Republicans.

    Then, in September 2006, it was disclosed that Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., had sent sexually suggestive messages to male House pages, and that Republican leaders had failed to take action even when they had been alerted to his actions, putting a cloud over the party two months before the election.

    This year, Republicans have again had to contend with high-profile sexual misconduct accusations against multiple House members, though Democrats have had their own to deal with as well, a difference from 20 years ago.

    Top Democrats have sought to emphasize Republican conduct on Capitol Hill and in an administration in which the president, his family and his allies have faced scrutiny for profiteering. In an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” this month, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic leader, said a central element of the Democratic campaign agenda was “pushing back against the corruption that has been unleashed on the American people, and holding the crooks accountable beginning on day one in January of next year.”

    It is not clear whether it will all add up to a repeat of 2006. But Nathan Gonzales, editor of the nonpartisan Inside Elections, sees the potential for the factors working against Republicans building into a resounding voter backlash against the party in power, as they did two decades ago.

    “I remember 2006 when everything snowballed against Republicans,” Gonzales said. “Ordinarily unrelated events got lumped together under one umbrella. Everything was Bush’s fault. The war with Iraq and Mark Foley really had nothing to do with each other, but it cultivated an appetite for change. I could see that happening again.”

    This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

  • What’s so surprising about a Christian Democrat?

    What’s so surprising about a Christian Democrat?

    In early July, before the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding, Texas Democrat James Talarico preached on the proper place of religion in politics. In his sermon, he argued for the importance of the separation of church and state while emphasizing that religion could still inform a person’s approach to and involvement in politics. He stressed how Christianity should shape the tone of one’s politics. Drawing on Jesus’ Parable of the Good Samaritan, Talarico claimed that loving one’s neighbor includes respecting people of different faiths.

    This message raised the ire of Talarico’s opponent, Ken Paxton, and many evangelicals have questioned the legitimacy of his faith. But he’s also earned the applause of a few Christian conservatives such as David French, who approvingly contrasted Talarico with MAGA Christian politicians.

    Talarico is not alone. There are currently a dozen ordained Christian ministers running for various public offices as Democrats, including Lutheran Pastor Sarah Trone Garriott (Iowa’s Third Congressional District), and United Methodist Pastor Adam Hamilton (Kansas-U.S. Senate).

    Many of these politicians, including Talarico, Trone Garriott, and Hamilton, have emphasized their religious faith not only as a part of their overall message, but they have situated their Christianity at the core of their identity. While there’s nothing “new” about Democratic politicians whose religious identity is central to their politics — this was common a century ago with progressives such as William Jennings Bryan and Barbara Jordan during the Civil Rights era (and still is quite common among African American politicians) — today’s candidates do represent a departure from the trend of the past four decades of Democratic Party politics.

    It hasn’t always been this way. Prior to the 1980s, candidates conversant in religion were common and unremarkable. At the time, evangelical and “mainline” Protestants were not aligned with political parties in the way they are today. As social scientist Ryan Burge has pointed out, in the 1970s most white evangelicals were Democrats and evangelicals helped elect “born again” Jimmy Carter in 1976 — the so-called “Year of the Evangelical.”

    President Ronald Reagan prays with National Association of Evangelicals President Arthur Gay, left, following his address to the organization’s convention asking for help in winning approval of a constitutional amendment permitting prayer in school in Columbus, Ohio, March 7, 1984.Barry Thumma

    But evangelicals’ rejection of Carter for reelection in 1980 signified an important shift for both parties. Explanations for white evangelicals’ turn away from Christian politicians like Carter and toward Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party — newly perceived as a reliably religious unit — usually point to several events in the 1970s.

    By 1972, the number of delegates at the Democratic National Convention identifying as agnostics, atheists, or people who almost never attended church had grown to 24% (compared to 5% of Americans who listed “no religion” on the General Social Survey.) These delegates helped to add progressive positions on women and gay rights into the party platform at a time when they were to the left of mainstream America’s sensibilities.

    Then in 1978, the IRS targeted mostly white private elementary and secondary schools, sometimes known as “segregation academies,” many of them religious, that had formed in response to desegregation, threatening their tax-exempt status unless they could demonstrate non-discrimination toward Black students. Additionally, by this time, the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade began to galvanize evangelical activists in a space that had been historically dominated by Catholic priests and laypeople.

    Both of these issues came together in the 1980 election, the latter thanks in part to the attention Francis Schaeffer drew to the issue in his writings and speeches across America and the organizing of Jerry Falwell Sr.’s Moral Majority. Because of the growing number of Democrats who self-identified as atheist, agnostic, or non-church attending, white Democrats tended to cede the religious political ground to the new Religious Right, even though plenty of Democrats were religious. Over the next decade, this helped create a binary between a “religious traditionalist” Republican Party and a “secularist progressive” Democratic Party.

    The Rev. Jerry Falwell speaks at his Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va., in a 1999 photo.

    Demographic trends over the next 40 years reinforced this shift. In 1975, 30% of Americans were part of the Protestant “mainline” (e.g. United Methodist, Evangelical Lutheran, Presbyterian USA, Episcopal Church, American Baptist, Disciples of Christ, and United Church of Christ). Today the mainline only accounts for between 9% and 13% of Americans. Theories for this decline abound, including loss of identity, aging congregations, poor retention of children as they grow into adulthood, controversies over sexuality, ordination of women and LGBTQ clergy, and same-sex marriage, which led to conservatives joining more evangelical churches.

    Over this same period, the number of Americans identifying as “unaffiliated” (the so-called “nones”) rose from 5% to nearly 30%.

    Factors driving this growth include people being more willing in a secularizing environment to admit they aren’t religious, young people who choose not to identify with any religion, and the general population becoming less religious over time. Democrats have enjoyed a decided advantage among the voting “nones” going all the way back to the 1984 election.

    For Black Americans, there has also been a more modest decline in affiliation with historically Black churches (e.g. National Baptist, Church of God in Christ, and AME Zion). Yet these churches have maintained a continued source of relevance for Black Protestants, playing a vital role in Black life as a source of social support, political organizing, community engagement, aid to the needy, and defense against racism and ethnic solidarity. Today, 53% of African Americans are still associated with historically Black Protestant churches, which probably accounts for the persistence over the past 40 years of progressive Black politicians with ministerial credentials.

    Meanwhile, evangelicals shifted from a slight majority favoring the Democratic Party before the 1980s toward a reliable core of the Republican Party, at a moment when their numbers were increasing. By the end of the 20th century, evangelicals grew to represent nearly 30% of all Americans, in part by having larger families, retaining their children in the church at higher rates, and maintaining cultural and theological distinctiveness.

    Collectively though, these trends meant the Democratic Party became less beholden to a religious demographic within its own constituency, and consequently, religiously-oriented politicians seemed less relevant to the Democratic Party.

    Made By History sponsors. FOR USE ON MADE BY HISTORY STORIES ONLY.Inquirer Staff

    The exception was the African American wing of the party, where Christianity remained central to most voters’ identities. Here, a political figure like U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock (senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist in Atlanta, a historically Black mainline church that Dr. Martin Luther King Sr. and Jr. pastored) is not exceptional. The Black church’s historic emphasis on social issues and inequality allowed for adherents’ continued support of Democratic candidates who were white and less religious, even as it did lead to some tension over progressive social goals, such as same-sex marriage.

    In fact, it was the emergence of a Black politician in 2004, then-Senate candidate Barack Obama, who helped call attention to the dearth of religiously-conversant Democratic politicians, arguing that his party needed to reengage religiously-affiliated voters. From 2004 to 2008, the Democratic Party emphasized outreach to religious voters in a concerted way. But after the 2008 election, and Obama’s win, this focus for the Democrats declined so much so that, by 2016, Michael Wear and others involved in rallying Democratic religious voters for Obama had become frustrated at the lack of dedicated outreach.

    So, does the emergence of Democratic politicians such as Talarico, Trone Garriott, and Hamilton signal a new shift on the order of what happened in the 1970s?

    It may be too early to tell.

    It may be, as Wheaton College Professor Esau McCaulley has argued, that the emergence of these politicians is linked to the backlash growing among Protestants tired of MAGA evangelicals defining what Christianity means in America today. Or, perhaps, these candidates are simply the culmination of a growing recognition within the Democratic Party of its need to reengage Christian voters.

    Regardless, it’s not an accident that the new crop of ordained Democratic candidates are located in regions of relative mainline Protestantism vibrancy in the Midwest and South.

    With the exception of Presbyterian Pastor Matt Schultz of Alaska, all 12 of the ordained candidates are running in Midwest or Southern states. Perhaps, politicians such as Talarico will succeed in reshaping how Christianity functions in the political space and reclaim a lost politics of religion within the Democratic Party. Time will tell if they are part of a new vanguard, or only a brief aberration.

    Joseph P. Slaughter is an associate professor of history and religion at Wesleyan University. His first book, “Faith in Markets: Christian Capitalism in the Early American Republic,” demonstrates how religious identities in the United States’ early decades influenced economic decision-making and the formation of the American capitalist system.

    Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of The Inquirer.

  • Thousands of Philly homeowners are facing property tax increases of 50% or more after this year’s reassessment

    Thousands of Philly homeowners are facing property tax increases of 50% or more after this year’s reassessment

    Most Philadelphia homeowners will see slightly higher property tax bills next year after the city conducted a mass reassessment process that resulted in a modest uptick in home values.

    But for thousands of residents, many of whom live in North Philadelphia, next year’s tax bills are expected to soar.

    Nearly 6,000 homeowners in Philadelphia saw their property assessments this year climb by more than 50% compared with two years ago, the last time the city conducted a mass revaluation, according to an Inquirer analysis of city property assessment data released in June.

    Of those homeowners, more than 2,200 saw their assessments more than double.

    Property values in Kensington went up more than any other Philly neighborhood this year

    That is likely to result in sticker shock come tax time next year, because property tax bills in the city are calculated based on home values. The revenue is split between the city and the Philadelphia School District.

    Homeowners across the city saw a median 3% increase in their property assessments this year compared with the 2025 tax year. Jumps were higher in neighborhoods that border gentrifying areas, such as in parts of Kensington and West Philadelphia.

    But this year, two other areas of the city had the densest concentrations of homes where property assessments increased by 50% or more, according to The Inquirer’s analysis.

    The steep rises are clustered in the southern end of Strawberry Mansion, the historically Black neighborhood along the Schuylkill, and in the tiny Hartranft neighborhood north of Temple University and east of Broad Street, where residents are predominately Latino.

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    Housing experts and advocates for low-income homeowners have long criticized the city’s assessment system as systemically biased, leaving Black and brown homeowners to pay disproportionately high property taxes. Mayor Cherelle L. Parker convened a task force in 2024 to study the city’s revaluation system, and that group’s recommendations are expected to be released later this year.

    Monty Wilson, a senior attorney at Community Legal Services who sits on the task force, said the Philadelphia Office of Property Assessment is the best in the state and has “worked really hard to become more and more accurate.”

    But he said bias persists in part because of the unique challenges that assessors face in low-income neighborhoods that can cause volatility in home values, such as higher rates of vacant lots, foreclosures, and other factors.

    A 2024 CLS report found that errors were clustered in lower-value neighborhoods where a majority of residents are people of color.

    “That means when a property is overassessed,” Wilson said, ”it tends to occur in a Black and brown neighborhood.”

    Redlining, gentrification, and subjective data have made property assessments spike in Philly’s Black and Latino neighborhoods

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    The Parker administration did not respond to requests for comment.

    In response to a previous article about this year’s property reassessments, city officials emphasized that some lower-income homeowners pay relatively low tax bills because of the popular homestead exemption tax break. The program, which any homeowners can apply for and obtain if they live in their house as their primary residence, exempts the first $100,000 from a home’s taxable value.

    That means that some homeowners in working-class neighborhoods previously paid little to no property taxes. A sudden increase in valuation, like the ones seen this year in pockets of North Philadelphia, could require they pay bills next year that are several hundred dollars more than in the past.

    Take the 2500 block of North Marshall Street. The residential North Philly street sits between West Kensington and Broad Street, and nearly every home saw its assessment increase by 60% or more, according to The Inquirer’s analysis.

    Most of the homes there had previously been valued at less than $100,000, meaning owners with the homestead exemption owed no property taxes. Now, many of the homes on the block are valued at about $140,000, an amount that would next year yield more than $500 in yearly tax bills for owners with the homestead exemption.

    More than 40% of the Hartranft neighborhood’s residents are below the federal poverty level, which is $33,000 a year for a family of four, according to U.S. Census data.

    At Left a property on 2500 N. Marshall St., Philadelphia, PA 19133 is shown Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2026, in Philadelphia.Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer

    City Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, whose district includes parts of Kensington and North Philadelphia, said the Hartranft area is not like sections of Kensington that have seen an influx of development in recent years and where increases in property assessments may be expected.

    It is possible, she said, that lower-income residents who have been displaced from parts of Kensington looked to move west of the neighborhood, increasing demand in the Fairhill and Hartranft areas.

    Lozada — who has held workshops in the neighborhood to connect residents with property tax relief programs — said she fears her constituents are being asked to pay disproportionately high taxes and not seeing better city services and stronger public schools.

    “How is it possible that someone in Fairhill is paying a higher tax for a property that has not had any investment, in a neighborhood that is not as safe, whose school system is not as great, as somebody that lives in Chestnut Hill, for instance?” she said, referring to the upscale Northwest Philadelphia neighborhood with a $109,000 median household income. “There has to be a better way of doing a more accurate evaluation in every neighborhood.”

    City Council is expected to hold a hearing this fall to probe the assessment process.

    In Strawberry Mansion, community leaders said that increased assessments are likely a result of market pressure from Brewerytown to its south, a comparatively whiter and higher-income neighborhood.

    “The city has to be super transparent about this assessment system so people can better understand it and not feel that sticker stock,” said Tonnetta Graham, president of the Strawberry Mansion Community Development Corp. “If we know how they came to their number, it’s easier to chew.”

    Philly City Council members probe Parker administration on rising property assessments: ‘Owners deserve answers now’
    The 1700 block of North Newkirk Street on Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026 in Philadelphia.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer

    Councilmember Jeffery Young Jr., whose district includes both Strawberry Mansion and parts of Hartranft, did not respond to requests for comment.

    Jalon Alexander, a Strawberry Mansion native who this month launched a campaign to challenge Young for his Council seat next year, said he was recently at a block party in the neighborhood where he heard repeatedly from older homeowners who were concerned about their increased assessments.

    “They feel taken advantage of, and they feel like it’s coming out of nowhere,” Alexander said. “This is an area where there’s high levels of poverty, and there is not a lot of political or government attention in this area. I’ve spoken with many people whose rates have almost doubled. It’s the biggest issue in the neighborhood.”

    Staff writer Michaelle Bond contributed to this article.

  • ICE inked a $9 million contract with a Montco firearms manufacturer — and is spending $17 million at Philly area businesses

    ICE inked a $9 million contract with a Montco firearms manufacturer — and is spending $17 million at Philly area businesses

    U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has awarded more than $17 million in contracts, mostly to businesses, in the Philadelphia area since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, with more than half of that money going to a firearms manufacturer in Montgomery County.

    The local data, compiled by The Appeal, highlights the Trump administration’s spending related to raids and enforcement operations as the agency carries out the president’s mass deportation agenda, including its purchases of weaponry.

    Geissele Automatics, a firearms manufacturer based in North Wales, has the largest and perhaps most consequential contract with ICE in the Philadelphia area.

    The company — which specializes in selling high-grade, AR-15-style semiautomatic weapons and parts to consumers, law enforcement agencies, and the military — entered a contract with ICE for nearly $9.1 million in September 2025, according to federal data.

    The payment was for the delivery of “precision long guns and accessories” to support ICE agents as well as the agency’s tactical programs, the data show. It’s unclear where the equipment is being used.

    Neither the company’s founder, Bill Geissele, nor a representative from the company’s sales team returned a request for comment.

    Nationwide, ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection has dramatically increased spending on firearms in Trump’s second term, according to a report earlier this year from U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff (D., Calif.), leading to outcry from Democratic officials and voters who say the agency has become a militarized force with little oversight or accountability.

    That outrage continued this month when Democrats voiced their opposition to ICE’s plan to provide ICE officers with electric shock gloves. Schiff’s oversight report, released earlier this year, called ICE and CBP’s contracts for weaponry a “misuse of taxpayer dollars to maximally arm federal immigration agents.”

    A spokesperson for Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that $17 million in contracts in the Philadelphia region is “simply not accurate” and “conflates nationwide ICE contracts” with spending in the area.

    “ICE contracts with vendors across the country to support its law enforcement mission. The existence of a federal contract, a vendor located in a particular region, or a nationwide contract vehicle does not mean that the full value of that contract was spent in Philadelphia,” the spokesperson said

    “Reporting should accurately distinguish between nationwide contract values, vendor locations, places of performance, and actual federal expenditures before presenting a misleading figure as fact,” they added.

    The details on the contracts come as residents and advocates in the Philadelphia region and nationwide are continuing to remain vigilant of ICE’s presence in their communities. Earlier this year, ICE struck deals to retrofit warehouses in Pennsylvania and New Jersey into mass detention centers before later backtracking after residents and leaders in both states voiced opposition.

    Bill Geissele — who hosts the manufacturer’s podcast Shots Fired in Anger —has donated to Republican elected officials in Pennsylvania, including U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick and U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser. Geissele’s contract, while not the company’s first with the federal government, is by far the most significant contract between the gun manufacturer and the federal agency on record.

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    In August 2024 for example, under former President Joe Biden’s administration, Geissele Automatics entered a $12,224 contract with ICE for equipment to support a “sniper sustainment” course, according to data compiled by The Appeal.

    By 2025, when Trump returned to the White House and significantly ramped up ICE operations nationwide, those contracts ballooned.

    On top of the $9.1 million contract that year, Geissele was paid $27,936 to provide training rifles and magazines for the agency’s Office of Firearms and Tactical Programs, as well as $16,544 for rifles and accessories required for testing and evaluation.

    ICE also took its spending across the river to Burlington County in New Jersey, where it awarded George J. Petronis Enterprises Inc., a gun shop, slightly more than $505,000 since the start of Trump’s second term for training ammunition and ink cartridges for 9mm training ammo to support ICE’s Office of Firearms and Tactical Programs in Fort Benning, Ga.

    George J. Petronis Enterprises Inc. did not return an email requesting comment.

    The Appeal’s dashboard also shows a contract for rental of a firing range between ICE and the county’s fire academy, located in Conshohocken, that has existed since at least 2021. But Montgomery County officials said Friday that the contract is with the broader Department of Homeland Security — which ICE is a part of — and not with the federal immigration enforcement agency directly.

    County Commissioner Jamila Winder, a Democrat, said that the academy is used by local, state, and federal agencies for law enforcement training but “this facility is not available for training for those engaged in immigration enforcement activities.”

    Other contracts highlighted by The Appeal dashboard may also be directly tied to DHS, instead of ICE.

    Earlier this year, Montgomery County’s Board of Commissioners passed a resolution restricting federal immigration enforcement from using county property or resources for noncriminal investigations.

    Other local contracts with ICE include a roughly $50,000 contract with the Philadelphia Parking Authority for rental spaces for 16 vehicles and more than $78,000 to Ricoh USA Inc., an office technology company headquartered in Chester County that was also used under the Biden administration. Coast2Coast Shredding LLC, which is headquartered in Montgomery County but shreds documents in California, received more than $94,000 from ICE.

  • Pete Buttigieg returns to South Carolina as he weighs another White House run

    Pete Buttigieg returns to South Carolina as he weighs another White House run

    ORANGEBURG, S.C. — The last time Pete Buttigieg was giving a political speech in South Carolina, it was to mark a distant finish in the state’s primary that effectively ended his campaign for president.

    Returning this weekend as he mulls a second run for the White House, Buttigieg set out to reintroduce himself to the state and the Black voters he struggled to win in 2020. The results were encouraging.

    There was a standing ovation in a Black church in South Carolina when Buttigieg was credited for helping bring millions of federal dollars to the area for a project as President Joe Biden’s transportation secretary. A second ovation came as Buttigieg gave a speech warning of a country in “big trouble” while laying out his own vision for what should come next.

    “There is no such thing as again in real life. The only way out is through,” Buttigieg told the crowd of more than 200 people at an NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner. “If we recognize and embrace a future that is different from the past, we will do better.”

    The warm applause was a markedly different reception than six years ago, when a fourth-place showing in South Carolina helped derail Buttigieg’s presidential campaign while exposing his failure to connect with Black voters. The state is likely to have an even greater say in his political future as the first contest in the Democratic presidential primary in 2028.

    Starting the election calendar in South Carolina is intended in part to give Black voters a greater voice at the outset of the nominating process. For Buttigieg and other potential contenders, winning the support of this group that makes up a majority of South Carolina’s Democratic electorate is essential.

    “You need to demonstrate that you can win Black voters,” said Jaime Harrison, a former Democratic National Committee chairperson and South Carolina Democratic Party chairperson. “If you can’t win Black voters, you can’t be the nominee of our party.”

    2028 campaign is already coming to South Carolina

    Buttigieg insists he has made no final decision about whether to run for president again.

    “Right now, I’m totally focused on 2026,” he told reporters Saturday.

    But his South Carolina trip — a week after visiting another early-voting state, Nevada — had all the trappings of a potential presidential bid.

    He raised money Friday in Charleston with Nancy Lacore, a U.S. House candidate trying to flip a Republican-held seat. On Saturday morning, he spoke at a policy conference before traveling to Claflin University, a historically Black university in Orangeburg.

    Davina Perry, a third-year student at Claflin, said she came away from Buttigieg’s visit thinking he would be a “good candidate” if he ran.

    “Secretary Pete has definitely put himself on my radar for 2028 now, for sure,” Perry said. But, she added, “I do want to see more representation from people who look like me.”

    That evening, Buttigieg attended a dinner at a church in Orangeburg, a nearly three-quarters Black city with a deep history in the Civil Rights Movement. The crowd included local NAACP leaders, ministers, and elected officials. Buttigieg worked the room, giving hugs and taking photos.

    “He is responsible for the Railroad Corner,” said Orangeburg Mayor Michael Butler, referencing a project aimed at revitalizing the city’s downtown that received a $22.7 million federal grant. “Do I need to say any more? We need to stand and welcome the former secretary.”

    Buttigieg used the speech that followed to make a broader case about the direction of the country, arguing that Democrats cannot separate Americans’ economic frustrations from a political system he described as increasingly broken.

    “I have come to believe that the kitchen table cannot be improved unless we are also reforming the institutional and political floor on which that kitchen table sits.”

    Black voters will have the first say for Democrats in 2028

    For Buttigieg, the weekend offered signs of how much has changed since he came to South Carolina in 2020 as a 38-year-old Indiana mayor asking voters to take a chance on him. He points to what he delivered during four years in Biden’s cabinet, including specific projects in the state.

    But Buttigieg said he also came to South Carolina “to propose something” about the country’s future. Butler, Orangeburg’s mayor, liked what he heard.

    “His speech was what you talk about at the kitchen table. How America is going to survive all of this?” Butler said. “He brought hope to us.”

    South Carolina Democratic leaders say the close, personal engagement with candidates is exactly what they hoped for. Those involved in the push to make South Carolina first envisioned the living-room conversations and retail politics long associated with Iowa and New Hampshire.

    “You got to go listen. You got to go all over the place,” Harrison said. “You have to make meaningful investments. That’s how you win South Carolina.”

    Buttigieg is hardly alone in his early trip to the state.

    Other potential 2028 contenders, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna of California, and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey have made trips to the state as what is expected to be a large Democratic field begins to take shape. Former Vice President Kamala Harris already has deep ties in the state.

    The electorate they will encounter has changed from 2020, when Biden’s victory in the state resurrected his presidential campaign and put him on a path to ousting Republican President Donald Trump.

    Four years later, Trump defeated Harris and returned to the White House, which Black leaders say has significantly hurt their community. Earlier this year, a Supreme Court decision weakened a core provision of the Voting Rights Act, threatening Black political representation across the South.

    “We must start our process where democracy must still be fought for, in the full view of the nation,” former interim DNC chairperson Donna Brazile said in a speech this year advocating for South Carolina to go first.

    Buttigieg addressed that anxiety directly Saturday night, describing efforts to weaken the Voting Rights Act as the culmination of a “multidecade effort.” He warned of a broader push “to demolish African American political power.”

    Harrison said Buttigieg’s trip this weekend was a “good start,” but that Buttigieg and all the other potential 2028 candidates have a long road ahead to prove themselves to the state’s voters.

    “It has to be a good start and then you got to continue,” Harrison said. “It can’t just be, ‘Oh, pop in and then I’m going to pop back out.’”

  • Why polling chaos could create big problems for American politics

    Why polling chaos could create big problems for American politics

    WASHINGTON — When Mandela Barnes dropped out of the Wisconsin governor’s race two weeks before the Democratic primary, he declared, “It has become very clear who our nominee is going to be.”

    He meant Francesca Hong, who had a commanding lead in polls — not David Crowley, who ended up narrowly winning the nomination.

    Politicians like Barnes have relied on public and private surveys of voters’ views to guide their decisions for as long as pollsters have sought to measure public opinion. But in this year’s midterm contests, misleading polling has shaped campaign narratives, donor behavior, and news coverage like never before.

    Polls are traditionally used to measure public opinion, not mold it. But this year, several Democratic campaigns have seized on unreliable polls to push the perception that their candidates are surging to try to solidify support, attract donors, and scare off rivals.

    The rise of prediction markets has also created financial incentives for untrustworthy or even fake political polls at a moment when it has become even more expensive and difficult to conduct high-quality public opinion surveys.

    Some Republicans — particularly President Donald Trump — have for years pointed to dubious polling to advance their political goals, but the phenomenon has become far more acute in Democratic primaries this year. In recent weeks, questionable surveys have created confusion and warped perceptions of the results of key primaries for the party.

    In Michigan’s primary for Senate, polls fueled a widespread belief that Rep. Haley Stevens, a moderate Democrat, was a major underdog to Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive. After she voted on primary day, the first question she faced from reporters was about how El-Sayed built such a large polling lead. She ended up losing by just a percentage point.

    In Wisconsin’s primary for governor, polls that consistently showed Hong ahead by double digits created an air of inevitability around her nomination. When she lost, it was viewed as a stunning upset.

    “After seeing the polls, I think everybody would have called me the underdog,” Crowley said. “During this race, I had to be a little bit recklessly optimistic.”

    The polling world has also been rocked by recent revelations of made-up surveys and sketchy practices.

    Three purported polls of the Los Angeles mayor’s race, the Wisconsin primary for governor, and the Nevada governor’s race turned out to be entirely fake — a “short-term social experiment,” according to the website that released them. The fakery’s discovery, by the Los Angeles Times, came only after Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles posted approvingly about one of the polls, which showed her ahead.

    Another pollster acknowledged that in a survey of Florida’s primary for governor, it had shifted some respondents’ support from the candidate they had said they backed to another candidate because the initial results “did not align with our read of the race.” (None of the polls above were included in the New York Times’ poll trackers or coverage because they did not meet its basic transparency and professionalism standards.)

    All of this is happening at the dawn of the 2028 presidential primary season, when dozens of candidates are likely to be defined in part by polls that cement impressions and set narratives that may not be tethered to political reality.

    “Every candidate in 2028 will have their own cooked poll factory,” said Lis Smith, a Democratic strategist who was a senior aide on Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 campaign for president. “Polls now are not just a way of measuring the horse race. It’s a way for candidates and their allies to influence the horse race.”

    ‘Double digit down — it cannot be!’

    In Michigan, the last eight public polls of Democratic voters found El-Sayed leading Stevens by double digits.

    In an interview this past week, Stevens said she never believed the race was the blowout that the polls predicted. She won key late endorsements from figures including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, a popular Democrat.

    But the polling unquestionably shaped how the contest was perceived. El-Sayed, whose advisers privately predicted a big victory, was so confident that the weekend before the primary, he was pictured hanging out with social media influencers poolside at a party.

    Stevens sent the Times a memo about her experience dealing with polling that did not reflect the reality of the race.

    “At first the double digit down polls leading up to the election spooked me and potentially had the ability to paralyze,” she wrote. “But then after chewing on them,” she added, “I came to realize, NO WAY! Double digit down — it cannot be!”

    In the interview, she attributed the polling miss to an industry that has largely moved away from expensive “live caller” phone interviews with voters. Instead, most contemporary polling is done online or through texting, mediums likely to include more young people even though the voting electorate skews older. (Live-caller polls can be seriously flawed, too, and it is generally considered best to analyze surveys from a range of pollsters using a mix of methods.)

    “Sometimes we miss the plot with all the tweets and all the polls and all the prediction market stuff,” Stevens said. “In this American democracy, it is still about the people voting, and that remains the purest and most incredible thing, and it likely captures the least amount of our attention.”

    The odds of confusion: 100%

    The biggest new phenomenon influencing how campaigns are viewed is the spread of prediction market data.

    The day before Michigan’s primary, Kalshi gave El-Sayed a 97% chance of winning. The morning of Wisconsin’s primary, Polymarket gave Crowley a 3.6% chance of victory.

    While betting-market odds are often based on the wisdom of crowds and opaque measurements, they are amplified by powerful companies and reported on by legitimate news organizations that in some cases have financial partnerships with the prediction firms. CNN has such an arrangement with Kalshi and regularly shows the prediction market’s betting odds on television. The Wall Street Journal’s parent company has a partnership with Polymarket to display its odds within Journal content.

    Voters and donors now see those numbers, which can be manipulated by all manner of polling and news events, and use them as a proxy for how a candidate is faring.

    Sean Clegg, a senior adviser to Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, who is likely to run for president in 2028, said prediction markets had a growing influence on Democratic strategists, donors, and primary voters.

    “Momentum is everything and poll numbers move prediction markets, which influences strategic voting,” Clegg said. “The progressive subset of the political class is hyper online, and they are pushing these polling narratives like never before.”

    What can anyone do?

    The modern polling industrial complex is a Wild West in which numbers often circulate online with little regard to whether they come from reliable sources.

    “There is no polling cop,” John Anzalone, a prominent Democratic pollster who worked for former President Joe Biden, said of the proliferation of low-quality surveys that flood the market. The news media, he said, is “going to report on every poll that has a university or college on it,” regardless of its methods. “Bad in,” he said, “bad out.”

    Both good and bad polls have real-world consequences, driving decisions about messaging, spending, and even whether to stay in a race. This spring, Gov. Janet Mills of Maine suspended her Senate campaign weeks before the Democratic primary, after low polling numbers starved her of money. The decision left Graham Platner to win the nomination without significant opposition. He later dropped out after a rape allegation that he denied.

    The first 2028 Democratic presidential primary contest is set to be in South Carolina, where the electorate is dominated by older Black voters — the exact demographic that was most difficult to poll in both Michigan and Wisconsin.

    Scott Huffmon, the director of the state’s long-running Winthrop Poll, said that like many other pollsters, he had abandoned live-caller surveys. “We just can’t afford it,” he said.

    Polling problems may be less pronounced in the 2028 race, since presidential contests are easier to poll and produce more high-quality surveys. But the looming questions about how to accurately analyze the field in 2028 have left donors struggling with how to decide which candidates are worth the investment.

    Few methods besides polling will be able to gauge who has popular support before the primaries begin in January 2028. But usually by the time voting begins, the field has been winnowed as candidates run out of money or perceive themselves to be lacking voter support.

    “Given what’s happened over the last two weeks, the inaccurate polling really calls into question whether there’s any empirical value that donors can use to guide their giving,” said Shannon Hunt-Scott, a Democratic megadonor from California. “There’s going to be so many candidates and so many polls of variable quality. People will want to tout them and run around with them. The question is, will they have any real validity? You can’t know.”

    This article originally appeared in the New York Times.